Natural Disasters
by Antitime
Summary: Aang is torn between his two teachers, Katara can’t get a certain firebender out of her mind, and Sokka’s still pining over Yue. Top it off with an oblivious Toph and throw in Ozai’s angels, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. pairings vary throughout
1. Sleep interupted

Hello, and welcome to Anti's first attempt to actually write a full story! This is brought to you by my avatardedness and my need to waste time when I should be studying for my finals!

Just so you know, I'm taking the shippings slow. Characters may express interest in each other but don't expect any "OH ZUKO I LURVERZ YOU OMG" in the first chapter, or even the second.

This is (hopefully) going to revolve equally around Toph/Aang, Zuko/Katara and Sokka/Ty Lee, however there are definitely going to be issues with Aang and Katara's unresolved feelings for each other and Mai's feelings for Zuko, ect.

Without further adieu, my erm…storeh XD

* * *

"He's kinda cute, Mai, doncha think?"

The gothesque assassin played with her hair as her friend rambled about some water-tribe peasant whom Mai was rather uninterested in.

"I mean his hair is so clumpy but I like clumpy kinda like bison hair clumpy remember when we found that bison hair and you said it was in CLUMPS? Kinda like that! Only on his head! I wonder if he likes oranges, I like oranges Mai, can we get some oranges…"

Mai yawned and found herself dozing off under the comforting shade of the cherry tree.

"Maybe when we fight them again I can ask him what his name is. What do you think it is? Probably something like 'Rou' or 'Heiji' or something weird like that. If I had a water tribe kid I'd name it…well I don't know WHAT I'd name it Mai but it would be something interesting. But of course I'll never HAVE a water tribe kid cause I'm from the Fire Nation and Firenation girls can't just spout out water tribe kids, huh? Heh heh heeeheee…"

The darkened cowl of Mai's eyelids connected, cutting off the white of her eyes as she rested peacefully.

"I wish it were afternoon already so we could start moving cause I'm getting real bored just sittin around here, how'bout you Mai?"

…  
"Mai?"

Mai's breathing came softly. Ty Lee's friend looked strangely peaceful, the cynicism and boredom vanished from her face. Times like these reminded Ty Lee of when they were kids and Mai was still happy.

What had happened to them?...

Oh yeah.

Azula happened.

She recalled her 'friend's' taunting of Mai and Zuko, how she'd played along. Anything to deter Azula from singling her out…

Poor Zuko. Poor Mai. They'd never be together now, he was a worthless traitor and she a detached governor's daughter.

Oh, but forbidden love was sooo romantic!

Like her and water-tribe boy.  
She knew it was a petty crush but perhaps the reason she was still thinking about him was…

was…

Ty Lee's thoughts were lost as she stared at her peaceful friend. Pink petals fell in Mai's hair and the ruthless girl, even in sleep, wrinkled her nose and blew them off.

/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

"Yue…"

Katara frowned, looking at her napping brother with an almost motherly worry.

Katara was a smart girl.

She noticed things.

She noticed that Sokka remained outwardly stupid in attempt to shelter his truly fragile nature.

She noticed that he never spoke of Suki or Yue, but when either name came up in conversation his frequently jabbering mouth shut up and he stared at the ground, or the moon, or at his feet.

She noticed him refuse help from her, even when it was just a small task like gathering firewood.

He reminded her of someone. Someone she couldn't put her finger on.

Stubborn, willful, moody…

Oh, yeah.

Mr. 'I'm too proud to let you save Iroh's life fire-boy.'

Katara's eye twitched as she thought of Zuko. She didn't know why, but he really bothered her. He had a stalker-like voice that was always sounding during the worst of times, a scar marring half of his face that made him quite ugly whenever his face contorted into that angry scowl. Which was all the time.

She liked the way he was growing his hair.

Wait-

_I didn't just think that_.

Sokka snored in response.

What was she doing?

Oh yeah…noticing all the things Sokka did that worried her.

She noticed him mumbling things in his sleep.

She noticed him spending time to himself, sparring with invisible opponents and later storming back to the campsite scowling after each battle he 'lost.'

She noticed-

"YEAHHEAAAAH!"

Aang.

She noticed Aang.

"BONZAI!"

With a loud CRUNCH, the earth beneath the not-so-peacefully sleeping Sokka elevated and fell, leaving the unassuming warrior in the air for a split second before he fell with an equally loud THUNK.

"My head…" he whined, rubbing the abnormally large appendage and groaning.

"Oh PLEASE. Your head is made of _wrought iron_" said a sarcastic and childish voice. Sokka's blue eyes opened to see where it was coming from and he let out a girly scream, discovering Toph about three millemeters from his face with a psychotic smile wiping out the rest of her subtle features.

"Why'd ya have to go and do that?" he asked the manically grinning girl, who backed up to lean casually against a rock crevice.

"Not me!" Toph chirped proudly, pointing at Aang, who was grinning guiltily.

"Eheh…" the world savior managed, waving at Sokka whose face promptly began to redden with rage.

"I see his…uh…Earthbending skills are improving?" Katara tried.

"YOUUUU!" shouted the enraged warrior, leaping up from the ground, machete in hand.

"Woah…Sokka…put that down…you might _hurt_ someone!..." Aang said nervously.

"I'M GONNA CUT YOU UP AND EAT YEH FOR _DINNER!" _

As the skittish airbender ran franticly across the plain, pursued by the enraged water-tribe boy, Toph proudly patted her absurd princess hairdo (complete with cotton puffs framing her ears) and plunked down on the log next to Katara, looking into the campfire.

"Boys…" she muttered sarcastically.

"Yeah…_tell me about it_."

/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

_Augh…I feel like I just got grilled over a royal bonfire and dumped in the ocean…_

Cold hands went to a cold face, wiping water droplets off of cold skin.

Where _was he_?

"Uncle?"

Amber eyes opened to discover the uneven surface of a wet mountaintop, complete with rocks and mud.

"Damnit!"

Zuko stood up, running his hands down his back in attempt to stifle the ache that had come from sleeping on rocks and in puddles.

He was _soaked._

"What the _hell_ was I _thinking_?"

Zuko's hands comically imitated the waterbending motion Iroh had taught him to deter lightening.

Oh. That's right.

He had angrily stormed to the top of a mountain, determined to be struck by lightening.

Suddenly it didn't seem like as smart of an idea as it had then.

Beginning his trek back to the desert town where he and Iroh had made camp, Zuko started to wring the water out of his earth-nation robes before just removing them altogether and throwing them over his shoulder.

The bright glint of sunlight and birds chirping irritably told him that he'd been asleep for almost half a day. He wondered if his uncle had worried.

Not that he cared.

Bitter old man, not letting him learn to deflect lightning…he could've gotten himself _killed_! Why didn't Iroh stop him from running away like that? Why didn't he come looking for him?

…

"Chamomile is my absolute favorite of teas" Iroh mused out loud, rubbing his chest which still stung dully.

"Calming to the nerves in almost all situations…"

"Still talking to yourself uncle?"

A quiet, lisping voice sounded from the doorway, and Iroh looked up to see his nephew, shirtless and slightly soaked, carrying his robes on his back like and animal he'd killed.

"I find that in stressful times it is soothing to hear a reassuring voice, even if it is just your own" the old man said.

"Why didn't you come looking for me?" Zuko asked in an irritated voice. Iroh knew it was to mask his hurt, and gave his surrogate son a compassionate look.

"What, up into the mountains? Zuko, you overestimate me in my age and health. With this injury-" he pointed to his bandaged chest- "I could hardly manage ten feet without stopping for a rest."

Zuko looked at his feet guiltily. Of course, how selfish of him to consider Iroh able to follow him into the mountains in his current condition.

"I'm sorry."

Iroh sipped his drink and pointed to a spot near their makeshift teafire

"Come sit with me and we can talk about it."

Zuko sighed and obeyed, handing his ropes on the dusty windowsill to dry. The spring air was crisp and cool, which didn't help the fire-boy's still-cold, bare skin.

"I was thinking about the battle" Zuko sounded out quietly, staring into the flames and rubbing his hands together, making a few sparks of his own.

"And?" the old man croaked.

"Why were you distracted by that little earthbender girl?"

Iroh paused a second before answering Zuko's question.

"I met her when I was on your trail. She was the one who told me to approach you. I didn't know she was an addition to the Avatar's group. Quite impressive. Did you know she's blind?"

Zuko shook his head.

"I'd think you'd know better than to let an acquaintance distract you in battle. No problem, though. She'll go down like the rest of her friends…"

Iroh chuckled.

"She reminds me of you, that little earthbender girl."

Zuko's nose wrinkled at being compared to an earthbender. Iroh continued.

"You mustn't be so afraid of other people, Zuko. The Avatar's group are formidable opponents. If you fear diversity you fear opposition."

"I fear nothing from them."

Iroh's eyes twinkled mischievously.

"Not even that water-tribe girl?"

Zuko burned his tongue on his tea.

"No. Why would you assume something like that?" he asked coolly, showing no sign of interest in the direction the conversation was headed.

"Oh, it's just that she's your opposite. I fought along side her and her brother back at the battle of the northern water tribe."

"That would explain why she wanted to help you" said Zuko, still disinterested.

"And you refused?"

Zuko suddenly felt ashamed. Having her heal Iroh would've been the smart thing to do.

But no…it would've been admitting defeat to her. And she was already one-up from their last battle against each other.

"Yes."

Instead of looking angry, or disappointed, Iroh simply smiled peacefully.

"Even the most durable stone is weathered by the storm, Zuko."

…

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

"TEN!" shouted an angry Toph, tossing yet another rock at Aang's face. Aang directed it back and Toph, who chopped it in half with her 'fists of fury.'

"ELEVEN!"

"Can't we take a break? Aang whined. The sun was hot, Katara was nowhere to be found, and Sokka had gone hunting long ago.

"Break?" Toph asked sweetly.

"Yeah!" Aang said excitedly, skipping a few steps forward and doing some fancy airbending dance.

Toph didn't see or sense this, but she got the jist of it.

"THERE ARE NO BREAKS IN EARTHBENDING UNLESS THEY'RE LIKE THIS!"

Toph whammed her foot into the ground, sending a crack of earth where Aang's feet had just landed.

Aang's left eye twitched and he jumped out of the way.

"TWELVE!" Aang bended the rock above his head and smashed it into the wall behind him.

"You are improving, pupil Aang."

Aang smiled.

"thanks!" he said, closing his eyes and giving Toph a thumbs up.

Only to open them and discover she was gone.

"…Toph?"

Aang stood there for about five seconds, looking around.

"…Toooph?"

Suddenly, a burst of earth came from behind him. Aang had expected suck an attack, and as Toph readied earth on either side and behind him, Aang jumped forward to in counterattack.

Aang's feet leaving the ground left the earthbender blind and confused.  
"Gotcha!"

Toph bell backwards onto her butt with an "umph" and Aang followed, landing on top of her.

Toph's earth attack followed, landing on top of both of them, leaving them buried under a pile of gravel with only their heads sticking out in some sort of TophAang sammich.

A few seconds passed and the Avatar blushed.

"GETOFFMEEEE" Toph whine-shouted, wiggling underneath of Aang.

"Uhm, Toph, I WOULD if there wasn't three feet of dirt on top of me!'

"You're the student, why don't you just bend it!"  
"You're the pro, if you want me off of you so bad why don't you just do it yourself!"

Toph clunked a rock on top of the airbender's head in response.

"You know what I think?" she giggled.

"WHAT."

"I think you're enjoying yourself."

Aang promptly blew all the dirt off of them in one giant gust of wind. He himself flew backwards and landed neatly on his feet, Toph was blown backwards into a cliff.

"You were supposed to EARTHBEND, you idiot!" she shouted.

Toph stood up, feeling the mess that was her hair. Her perfectly done bun was now a mass of waves cascading down to her back, the headband lieing some three feet away from her.

Aang blushed.

Toph whipped a bit of dirt from her face and spat.

"Take a ten minute break."

Aang nodded, forgetting that she couldn't see head gestures and headed off to the campsite to find Katara.

* * *

((wellz, that was my first chapter throws party any feedback is welcomed :D)) 


	2. The same moon

Nee, chapter two already? I'm sooo annoying :P

Anyway, today was a half day and I had some times to whip up another chapter. Hey, don't worry, there will be some real action soon

* * *

In the entire span of her short, uneventful life, Mai had learned a few important things. 

1. When living with a psychotic manipulative princess who had the power to fry your internal organs with the flick of her finger, it is best to agree with everything she says, even if you know it's complete bullshit.

This rule, Mai had been following quite well that evening, as she nodded and shook her head and sometimes even _smiled_ slightly whenever Azula asked her a question.

"I'm sure my most beloved comrades agree with me-"

"Mhmm, yes!' said Ty Lee enthusiastically, giving Azula the thumbs up, trying desperately to mask the look of insecurity that her eyes were conveying.

Mai shuddered. Azula was being particularly creepy tonight, at dinner she was all smiles and sugar and talking about how much she 'loved' her 'best friends' which probably meant that she was planning on having them killed in their sleep.

"What do you think, Mai?"

Mai shook herself to attention, her normally blank stare trying to remember what Azula had been talking about.

"I think…whatever you say is best" Mai worded carefully.

"Oh, but really Mai, I want to know what you think!"

Azula's smile could've poisoned the fire lord himself.

2. In the instance you forgot what said bitchlette was talking about, find a casual way to draw the attention away from yourself.

"Nothing I could say could possibly match the cunning of your plan, Azula. You are, after all, the most brilliant person I know" Mai droned robotically.

Azula laughed haughtily.  
"Very well then, firstwe handle the Avatar and his party. Intercept them at Yemin, theonly town in their path for miles.Then we move in to capture my idiot relatives and put them to their rightful death.Cheers!" Azula raised her glass with a smile that would make a rampaging gatorcat's eyes drop out.

Shit. _Zuko._

Mai's gaze hit the table, knowing very well that Azula was doing this to make her miserable. To test her loyalty.

"Well?"

3. In the event Azula does something to hurt you, detune yourself and forget you care. Your life is the main priority.

"Cheers." Said an unexcited Mai, averting her eyes from venom girl and her nervous friend.  
"Cheers" Ty Lee agreed.

Their glasses clinked, and the roaring of their machine continued to blaze a trail into the night.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"I wish we didn't have to leave so soon" the aged firebender said sadly. "I was almost beginning to like that town. Quiet. Peaceful."

"We both know it was best that we keep moving. Azula knew our location. It's only a matter of time before she comes back to finish us off."

As their steer steeped haphazardly on a rock and shook violently, Iroh groaned and grabbed his chest where Azula had burned him.

Zuko looked back with worry.  
"Gas" he lied with a cheesy smile. The look on his nephew's face certainly said he'd fallen for it.

"At least you're sitting behind me."

"Heh heh…"

Silence passed between them and Iroh looked up at the moon. He began to hum in his hoarse voice, which Zuko ignored, pressing the horsebird on.

"I think it's safe to camp here for the night" Zuko said softly, pointing to a spot by the woods. They'd put a minor distance between the ghost down and themselves, but Iroh was obviously in no shape to travel right now. Zuko hopped off the animal, holding his hand out respectfully for his uncle.

Iroh made a pained face again as he jumped down.  
Zuko ignored it. He hated to see Iroh like this.

"Do me a favor, Zuko and gather some firewood" Iroh requested, unwrapping the bundle of their sleeping bags and other materials.

Iroh's younger companion nodded, pulling his own bundle out of the pile. The old man's eyes watched him with undetectable suspicion.

_What is in that bag that he doesn't want me to see?_

It hurt Iroh, knowing that Zuko kept secrets. His thievery and attitude were enough, but dishonesty…

The old man sighed, laying out his sleeping matt and a few other supplies.

Zuko's figure disappeared into the woods.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"_My father told you to protect me." _

"_I did the best I could!"_

"_It wasn't good enough. You failed, you failed the northern water tribe, and you failed me." _

Sokka gasped as he woke up, surprised by the sudden breeze surrounding him and the strangest sensation he had that his furry sleeping bag were _flying_.

Wait- _furry? Flying_! Sokka realized a second later that he was supposed to be directing Appa. They'd left the valley almost ten hours ago, he'd promised to take them to the nearest town for supplies. And he'd _fallen asleep._

Looking anxiously at his companions, he realized that they too were asleep. No one had bothered to direct the buffalo, and they were going _backwards._

"Shit. Shitshitshitshit" Sokka cursed to himself.

He looked down.

That river…looked oddly familiar.

He slapped his forehead and directed the buffalo downwards. They needed to make camp somewhere, and he knew that the next 20 miles _at least_ were desert.

_If we make camp here, we'll at least have water and I'll be able to fish._

Appa's feet hit the ground. Immediately Aang woke up.

"Are we there already? Great! Let's make camp!"

How did a kid who was fast asleep five seconds ago wake up so quickly! It was two in the morning!

"Ughh" Katara moaned, rubbing her head. Her meticulous braid was frazzled and she tried to smooth it out, her eyes looking baggy. She had rolled on top of Toph during the trip and Katara's movement woke the young earthbender up.

"Morning, beauty queen. Mind getting off my leg?" Toph snapped at the sleepy girl, who obeyed with a snide look and jumped off Appa, stretching and yawning.

"A river? I thought you were going to take us to the nearest town…"

"yeah…funny thing about that."

"Hey- this is the place where we washed Appa five days ago. Look at the clumps of buffalo hair…" Aang said in a confused voice.

"SOKKA?" Katara shouted, hands over her ears.

"Appa went the wrong direction. Geeze, I fell asleep, whad'you expect!"

"I expected you to stay awake on account of YOU SPENT THE LAST _DAY_ SLEEPING."

The furious waterbender threw her bundle down. Toph grinned, thoroughly enjoying watching Sokka get reamed out.

"Way to go, metalhead" she tittered.

"HEY, HEY, guys!" Aang shouted in exasperation. "CALM DOWN."

"CALM DOWN? WE HAVE NO FOOD, NO SUPPLIES, AND THE NEAREST TOWN IS MILES FROM HERE."

Katara, uncharacteristically upset, stormed off towards the river.

"Hey, Katara, it's OK!" said Aang brightly. "I don't mind."

"Yeah, but I DO. Sokka, we're all supposed to do our part to help Aang, and here you are, messing us up because you're LAZY!"

"YEAH WELL I GUESS I JUST FAIL AT LIFE, DON'T I. _ugh_."

"_UGH_!'

Katara vanished into the woods, water jug on her back.

…

"So…" Toph started in awkward sarcasm. "Anyone up for a game of twiddleplunks?

"Nope, I'm good!" Sokka spat back.

"Just give her some time, Sokka" the Avatar said calmly, putting his hand on Sokka's back. "She's just tired, give her some time to chill out."

The rest of camp prepared to go back to sleep.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Using his broadswords to hack away at the branches of unsuspecting dead trees, the Blue Spirit completed his task of woodgetting valiantly.  
Far too awake to head back to camp and listen to said Uncle ramble in metaphors, the creature placed his pile of flammables on the ground and headed off towards the gurgling of water that was all too tempting.

Entering the clearing around the river, the beast bent down and lifted his mask, revealing the thinning face of prince Zuko, who bent down to take a drink.  
_Perhaps I should bring some water back to Iroh…_

Suddenly the sound of crunching branches on the other side of the river reached the firebender's alarmed ears. Retreating to the woods he started to make out angry female vocals approaching.

_Please…anyone but-_

"THE NERVE OF THAT-"

Waterbender? That girl, _what_ was her name? He'd heard it spoken hundreds of times…

Zuko pulled down his mask and became the Blue Spirit again.

_Perhaps I can follow her and find where their camp is. Then I can attack and capture the Avatar and-_

_Carry a dangerous noisy kid on the back of a starving Horsebird with your Injured Uncle for fifty miles into the nearest earth-kingdom city where you'lll promptly be caught and executed?_

_You got any better ideas, pasteface?_

_No…_

_Just wondering…_

While the Spirit's thoughts became increasingly hopeless, Katara ceased her screaming and took her shoes off.

_Oh god…please don't strip down _the Blue Spirit thought in alarm. _Not that there would be anything wrong with her taking her clothes off, I mean, she's probably really stuffy in that dress…_

But no, the girl rolled up the bottom of her pants and stepped into the river, starting to waterbend.

Great. If that's all she was going to do for the next _hour…_he probably would have _preferred_ her to take her clothes off.  
Spirit-boy might as well head back to camp now.

Just when he was ready to do just so, a splashing sound caught his attention and on the bank of the river, he saw a large, fat fish flopping back and forth.  
The girl took a sharpened stick out of the container on her back and stabbed it through the gills, so that it ceased its flopping and hung limply.

Ouch.

She repeated the motion of waterbending about several times and soon she had ten fish in a neat pile.

The Blue Spirit's stomach growled. He hadn't eaten for two days.

Perhaps he could steal one from her when she wasn't looking.  
How would he cross the river?

His stomach growled.  
Food. Avatar.

Food…Avatar

But- food!

_Avatar._

The spirit shook his head. The answer was obvious.

The wanted criminal used his strength and cunning to scale the surface of a nearby tree that's upper branches crossed the river.

Katara didn't notice.

With the skills of a tomcat, he leapt from the branches to another tree across the river, causing the leaves to rustle violently.

Katara didn't notice.

With top-notch stealth and utmost cunning, the Spirit crawled his way through the leaves and sprung out onto the little shelf of sand where the girl was fishing. Hiding behind a rock, he waited until she turned her back and darted forward silently.

Katara didn't notice.

The grinning masked man put his hand on one of the fish.

Katara slammed him into a tree with a violent whip of water.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

At approximately 3:00AM, Katara had not yet returned, and the other three campers were asleep.

Well…so it seemed, until the rock teepee under which Toph was sleeping slammed itself back into the ground and she stretched, 'eyeing' the sleeping airbender and buffoon with boredom.

One of them was sleeping like a rock. She could hardly even pick up his essence…

Toph followed her earth sense to the edge of the woods, and was ready to pull her pants down and take a crap before-

"Do you MIND?"

Sokka.

Stifling an indignant scream, Toph turned to where the voice was coming from.  
"Alright Foofoocuddlypoofs, where the hell are you?"

Sokka hopped down from a tree, and Toph turned towards him the second his feet hit the ground.

"Oh, SORRY, didn't know this forest was your personal wastebin, _princess_"

"Well, it IS, and you'd be best off to warn people when you're staring at them while they're _trying to take a shit_."

The water-tribe boy was silent for a few seconds, obviously astonished by the deceptively small, childish earthbender's rather offensive vocabulary.

"What are you doing up anyway?" Toph asked, her anger softening to a questioning curiosity. Which was still rather blunt sounding.

"Why do you care?" The warrior sounded a bit defensive.

"I just DO, OK?"

…

"Well for your information, I was looking at the moon before you came to take a _crap_ on my _tree_."

"Oh.'

Toph looked up at the sky, trying to 'see' the moon and faced in the wrong direction.

"It's actually behind you" Sokka said, feeling a bit bad for Toph.

"I KNEW that" Toph said defensively.

Sokka sat down on a rock.

"So…what does the moon look like?" he asked her softly, not in the mood to be the stupid one.

"It's…a big rock" she said.

"What color?"

Toph tried to remember what her mother had said to her when she was younger but failed.

"Why should I care?" she said, failing to think of further facades for her blindness. "You can see it, you tell me!"

Sokka sighed. He tried to steer the subject away from her blindness.  
"Legend says that the phases of the moon are the faces of the people you love, dead or alive."

"That's completely stupid" the earthbender retorted.

She then sensed that Sokka was offended.

"I mean…sorry…" she apologized quickly.

"It doesn't matter."

A few minutes passed and the two acquaintances stared at the glowing orb in the sky. Sokka sighed again, and Toph looked at him.

"What color is it?" she asked.

Sokka stared back into her faded, almost _white _eyes and shook his head, standing up and walking back to camp.

"It doesn't matter."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Katara turned and faced the attacker of her meal with a vehement look of anger on her face.

"I am REALLY not in the mood for this right now."

The 'attacker' sat dully against the rock. She couldn't tell if he (she assumed by his build shape that he was male) was in shock or just mocking her, because his masked face continued to grin hideously in the moonlight.

"Who or…_what _are you?" she demanded, pointing her finger at the Blue Spirit, trying to remember where she'd seen his 'face' before.

The Blue Spirit said nothing, getting to his feet.

"why were you taking my fish?" she demanded after he failed to answer.

Still nothing. Katara was getting really annoyed now.

"ANSWER ME!" Water from the stream began to gather around her protectively. Still, the Spirit did nothing.

The silence frightened her. What if he was dangerous?

Not that she couldn't _handle_ herself but that idiotic clay grin and the silent, stillness of his prescience was beginning to make the water-tribe girl uncomfortable.

Or maybe he was just hungry? He had, after all, stuck all the way across the river in attempt not to draw attention to himself.

Katara sighed irritably, defeated. She had no reason to threaten someone who wouldn't attack or speak to her.

"Fine. Just take one."

The spirit did nothing.  
Katara lunged forward and picked up a particularly large fish, walking to where he stood and dropping it in his hands.

_I'm being awfully bold tonight…I still don't know if he's friendly._

The spirit caught the fish, it's masked face looking from the dead animal, to Katara, to the dead animal, still saying nothing.

"No need to thank me" she said, quieter now, but still impatient.. "It's a gift. My name is Katara. Nice to meet you. Take the fish and leave."

The Blue Spirit bowed. Katara blinked. When she opened her eyes, he was gone.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

_INFURITATING! This is just…agh! _

Princess Azula felt the urge to rip her own hair out, but instead aimed a lightning bolt directly above the head of the town leader.

"YOU MEAN TO TELL ME" Azula said through gritted teeth.

"That you haven't seen any of these people. ANY OF THEM!"  
Azula flashed a picture of Aang, followed by the two water tribe kids and the blind bandit.

"P-please, your ma-majesty, the A-avatar and his friends have not been through here" the man stuttered nervously.

"Bullshit. BULL SHIT. This is the only town for MILES located in his path!"

The man bowed to the fire nation princess.

"P-perhaps h-he turned around and went the other way!" he tried desperately.

"Why on EARTH would he do that?"

"I-I don't know y-your majesty."

Azula stoped shouting and smiled sweetly. Ty Lee, flanking her left side, cringed, knowing something bad was going to happen.

"It's no matter" Azula said, turning around, gesturing for her two friends to follow. The obeyed.

As they neared the machine which they were using to track the Avatar, Mai turned to her.

"Perhaps he was right. If those kids have an ounce of sense, they would've gone off course to throw us off."

Azula contemplated this, furrowing her eyebrows.

"Perhaps this changes our plans." She rubbed her chin manically.

Two fire-nation soldiers bowed to the girls as they readied to step aboard the machine.

"Anything we can do for you, your majesty?"

"Why yes, yes there is" Azula said sweetly. "_Burn this town to the ground_."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Hello, Zuko" said Iroh quietly to his nephew.

"Uncle! I'm surprised you're still awake."

"I was worried about you, Zuko. That was an awfully long time for some firewood."

"I brought you some fish" Zuko said, dropping the firewood and placing it on a flat piece of wood.

"Nice…aren't you doing to have some?" the old man asked curiously as the tired warrior retreated to his sleeping bag.

"No thanks. I'm not hungry."

* * *

OK, just to clarify- Sokka and Toph talking does NOT mean he's in love with her. I'm stating this because people tend to think that when two characters actually attempt to get to know each other it means something romantic. 

It doesn't. I just want them to earn a sense of respect for each other.

bwa, sokka's idiocy saved them all XD

And yes, the real action will begin next chapter!


	3. Jealous and oblivious

bwahahahaha! I am updating again, because I'm the expert at fast and crappy chapters.

so...YEAH

* * *

Morning came like an egg cracking on a stone floor- slow, trickling and cool. Aang shined his bald head with a piece of cloth and looked at himself in a puddle, amused temporarily by the distorted reflection.

"Hey sleepyhead!"

"Katara!" Aang beamed and walked over to the waterbender, who was busy frying something on their campfire. "Mmm…looks good!"

"I thought you didn't like meat."

"Oh…well…I was just trying to appreciate your cooking and all…" Aang blushed furiously.  
Katara didn't notice.

Sokka sniffed, sitting on a rock and looking rather stubborn.

"Hey Sokka! What's wrong?"

Sokka growled to himself.

"He's still mad at me" Katara explained. "I tried to apologize for overreacting, but he won't even accept the fish I cooked him. Oh well, I guess I'll have to give it to Toph."

Sokka's stomach growled from over on his rock. He looked in the other direction.

Toph had already gone through three of Katara's nine fish and looked like she could eat another 50.  
The small earthbender accepted Katara's apology to Sokka quite well, sawing at it barbarically and biting a sample off her knife.

Sokka made a whining noise from deep in his throat.

"Needs to be tenderized" Toph noted, preparing to smash it with a rock.

"WAIT!" Sokka jumped up and grabbed the fish out of Toph's hands. "Katara, I accept your apology if you accept mine!"

Toph grinned. Katara shook her head at Sokka's appetite. Did all men think with their stomachs?

"Apology accepted. And thank you."

Aang grinned from ear to ear, digging into his saladlike breakfast and mumbling something to Toph with his mouth full. She shot him a disgusted look.

Katara pulled her brother aside.

"So…" Sokka started, hoping that his truce with Katara would last. "Should we head out of here this afternoon?"

Katara shook her head.  
"Appa's not looking so good. I think all the traveling is tiring him out. Perhaps we'll be safe for the rest of the day…I was thinking about it and…maybe those girls were thrown off by us going in the wrong direction."

Sokka grinned.

"Well, it _was_ a part of my plan, after all, confusing the ene-"  
"Don't push it."

Katara sighed.  
"I don't think we're going to be safe anyway. Not for a while. But exhausting ourselves never does any good."

Sokka frowned, remembering his last encounter with those scary girls.

"They're fast" he mumbled to himself. "Maybe we threw them off for a day, but I'm not sure it's going to last."

Katara heard but didn't answer.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Zuko, do you mind fetching some water for the tea?" Iroh rasped, setting sparks to a new bundle of logs.

_Why don't you get it yourself_ Zuko thought in annoyance, though he knew it was because Iroh still wasn't in the greatest of shape.

"What happened to the water you had in the gourd?" Zuko asked, not really wanting to risk interaction with the water-tribe girl again. At least not until he knew Iroh was fit to fend for himself in the case something happened to Zuko.

"Heh heh…I used it to wash my feet" Iroh said with a grin, wiggling his knobby old toes for his repulsed nephew. "See? Squeaky clean."

Zuko slapped his forehead.  
"I'll get the basin."

Toph's psycho grin was back as she hammered the earth with her bare feet, forcing Aang to withstand a Toph-induced earthquake.

Part of it was for training.

Part of it was because she enjoyed hearing him fall on his face.

"H-hoo-wt d-o-sss t—hhh-iii-s h-help wi-ith my ea-rrth-b-ee-ending" he managed as he tried to steady himself.

"It helps you learn to stabilize yourself. You won't always be on steady ground. Earth can be a volatile element, you have to listen to what your feet are telling you and learn to achieve balance. If you can balance your body, you can balance your mind" Toph said matter-of-factly.

"Wow" Aang said, when Toph finished abusing the earth. "That was deep."

"So is this!" Toph chirped, creating an earth split under Aang's feet.

Aang airbended himself out of the way just in time.  
Toph slapped her forehead. "What did I TELL YOU?" she shouted. "No airbending!"

She made another, bigger crack. This time, Aang failed to dodge. Catching himself on the edges of the small canyon, he avoided falling into the grave Toph had created for him.

"Now" Toph said. "Can you get yourself out?"

Aang's skinny airbender arms strugged to lift the mass of his body for a few seconds. The sounds of his feet scraping against the edges of the crack were audible to Toph's sensitive ears.

Toph walked forward and bent down, 'looking' directly into her student's eyes.

"You have to feel the earth" she commanded. "Stop struggling like a trapped animal! Sense the rock, _feel it_ against your body!"

Aang stuck out his tongue at his obliviously blind teacher.  
"I feel _something_ all right."

Aang created a foothold with his earthbending, so he could relive the pressure from his arms. He then used them to force the earth from the bottom on the hole up, levitating his body out of the hole enough for him to climb out with springy ease.

Toph smiled. Something about this made Aang very happy. Pleasing Toph was difficult but when he did, it felt oddly more satisfying than making anyone else smile.

…

"WATCH OUT" the earthbender shouted all of the sudden.

Aang's stomach jumped about a mile as he turned to see what Toph was shouting about. And was promptly hit in the back of the head with a rock.

Aang fell dizzily to the ground, looking up at his teacher with blurry eyes.

"What was _that_ for?" he whined.

"You're too easy" she explained.

Aang grinned lopsidedly.

"What?"  
"There are two Tophs now" he said drunkenly. He pointed his finger at the blurry vision of her frowning face.

Toph sighed in exasperation, bending down to take Aang's hand and help him to his feet.  
Aang grabbed on to her to keep himself from falling again.

And held on to her for about thirty seconds.

"Uhm…Aang? You can let go now. I didn't hit you _that_ hard."

"Oh…right."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"I thought I'd see you again" Katara said calmly to the masked face she noticed in the woods across the stream. Still, the Blue Spirit didn't move. She'd been there for almost two hours, wondering if he would return, and when she finaly caught sight she wasted no time in speaking.  
Which…was the same thing she had done to Haru at first, and he'd run away from her.

Perhaps this tactic wasn't working.

"I'm not going to hurt you or anything…" she said curiously, wondering why it refused to approach her.

_Yeah right. Like you even could_ the man behind the mask thought in exasperation. He'd only worn it in case she was there again. What was she doing, stalking him? Perhaps she'd slept in the river last night. That would explain her hair. It was a mess.

Not that he cared about her hair.

Katara sat down stubbornly and began to waterbend. The firebender's eyes watched the fluid motion with growing disdain.

Finally he stepped forward out of the woods.

What was he, scared of a little waterbender?

Katara looked at him for a second, but then back at her water, which was still suspended in the air.

The Spirit started to fill his water jug, plaster eyes face still staring at the girl with distrust.

"Let me help you" she volunteered cheerfully, using her bending to summon fresh water from the stream to go towards his container.

The man pulled back, dropping the jug and spilling the water.

"Oh…I see" Katara said, disappointed.

The spirit filled his jug on his own and left.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

_Sokka, the fearless warrior of the southern water tribe! Silently, he stalks his unsuspecting prey. The elusive beast cowards in the presence of his mighty sword-_

"Hey Fruitbrain! What's up with you and that squirrel?"

The frightened rodent skittered away at the earthbender's voice. Sokka cringed.

"HEY! You scared away my dinner!"

This didn't phase Toph. She planted herself on the ground and crossed her legs.

Sokka looked at Toph.

Toph looked at Sokka.

Sokka frowned at Toph.

Toph grinned at Sokka.

"…why…are you here?" Not really a question. More of a statement. _Go away_.

"Aang and little princess sparklecakes are waterbending."

Sokka sighed.

"Well then…why don't you just…take a rest?"

"Don't need to!"

"Leave me alone?" Sokka tried.

Toph contemplated this.

"Nah…I don't _feel_ like it."

Sokka tried again.

"I was going to take a bath in that pond…"

"You just do that!"

"I can't while you're watching!"

"Oh well then. Don't bathe for all I care."

Sokka wondered what he'd done to deserve this.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Mai, I want to you handle the waterbender. Ty Lee, The Warrior and that blind kid.

_Score_! Ty Lee thought enthusiastically. Forgetting that 'handle' meant 'kill.'

"I'll handle the Avatar."

_Of course you will_ she mocked in the safety of her mind. Mai's lips were curled into a smile. She'd been talking about what a 'pretentious whore' the water-tribe girl was so Ty Lee assumed this would be fun for the assassin.  
Not for her though. She disliked killing people. Especially hot warrior boys and cute little Earth-nation kids.

"So when will we get there" Mai asked Azula with a monotone impatience. She was bored. It was obvious.

"By nightfall. We should be able to catch them off guard while they're sleeping."

"You sure you can locate them?"

"Are you doubting me, Mai?"

Ty Lee shot a concerned look towards her best friend. Mai looked unphased.

"You're right- the only water for miles, four kids and a giant buffalo. There's no way we could miss them."

Azula gave Mai a smug smile. Ty Lee felt bad for the frumpy weapons lover- Azula always picked on her.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"You spend so long when you go to get water" Iroh teased.

The chubby old man sat comfortably in the shade of a tree near their campsite. His eyes looked suspiciously at the bag slung over Zuko's back but he said nothing.  
"Perhaps I should get it next time."

Zuko suddenly felt alarmed. If Iroh stumbled into the Avatar's path, it would be bad news. They were enemies, if they assumed Iroh was after them they might attack. He could get hurt again.

Seeing the horror in Zuko's eyes, Iroh shook his head.

"I was only joking. What is there at that river you don't want me to see?"

"Nothing."

Iroh frowned. "Don't you think we should be heading out of here?"

Zuko looked at Iroh with sad eyes. He didn't want to tell the man that he was worried. The last thing Iroh needed was his nephew's doubt.

But Zuko knew he was getting worse.

Iroh- he looked pained every time he stood up, although he tried to hide it.

"No. Azula is following the Avatar. She won't find us here" he lied.

_Just stay away from the Avatar and nothing will happen to him…_

"Aren't _you_ following the Avatar as well, Zuko?"

Zuko frowned.

"You are my main priority, uncle" he said stoically.

Iroh smiled, but his eyes looked distant and unhappy.

"Besides. It's not like catching him would make a difference anyway" the young man whispered, looking off into the woods.

He had to stop going back there. Perhaps next time he'd walk further down the stream to get water. What if someone other that the oblivious girl saw him and recognized the blue spirit mask?

So long as it was Katara, he was safe. Her brother was also stupid, he probably wouldn't be much of an issue. The earthbender was blind and wouldn't sense him if he was in the trees.

But the Avatar would recognize him immediately.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Katara, have you ever had feelings for a girl that doesn't even notice, no matter how hard you try to tell her?"

Aang, standing in his undergarments and sparing with Katara in the steam (also nearly naked), and had paused to ask her the question.

Katara raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not sure I've _ever_ had feelings for a girl, at least not the sort _you're_ talking about"

Aang's eye twitched as he realized what he said.

"I- I mean, anyone. You want them to notice you and they're completely oblivious."

Perhaps earlier he would have said the exact same thing about Katara. But the truth was, after their kiss in the cave of the two lovers, he'd realized something.

Katara thought of him as her little brother.

She was a totally beautiful, strong, brave water goddess and he was a dinky little kid. The Avatar, but still a dinky little kid.  
And he'd given up.

He loved her, but as a friend. A gorgeous, unattainable friend that he'd never be with. She deserved better.

Katara smiled, her eyes closed.

"Believe it or not, yes."  
Aang smiled sheepishly, glad to know someone understood.

A silence followed.

"Do you mind if I ask you who?" he prodded curiously.

Katara frowned.

"I- I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to…"

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt...

…

Well…you remember Jet?"

Aang's face looked rather disgusted.

"You liked HIM?"

Katara laughed.  
"Before I realized how fucked-up he was" she said, then furrowed her eyebrows, ashamed that she'd sworn in front of Aang.

Aang still looked disgusted.

"WHAT? I thought it was obvious…"

"Not to ME it wasn't."

"Well you're just silly then" Katara teased, splashing Aang with water.

The playful battle between them started up again.

"So…anyone else?" Aang teased, sending a waterbending bomb onto his teacher's head.  
The girl's white undergarments were soaked and she stuck out her tongue.

"Wouldn't YOU like to know."

"Yeah I would-"

Katara wrapped water-ropes around Aang's feet and tripped him.

"mrspsorep" Aang gurgled in the water. "No fair!"

Katara laughed.  
"If you weren't so busy talking maybe you'd notice when someone's sneaking up on you." Katara kissed Aang's cheek playfully. Aang blushed.

Perhaps he _wasn't _over Katara.

_Forget it, Airhead, it's never going to happen._

And a distance down, hidden safely in a tree, a silent spectator watched this with an inexplicable dislike.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

_The ribbon's in Mai's hair fluttered as she breathlessly ran to catch up to a stormy Zuko.  
"Hey- wait up!" she huffed. _

The boy looked back at her and grumbled something about girls being crazy and continued to walk away.

_  
Mai reached Zuko and put her hand on his shoulder, looking at him sympathetically. _

"What are YOU doing here? Coming back to mock me some more?" he shouted immaturely.  
Mai looked like she was about to cry.

"_Well don't bother! Azula told me about you! All you ever do is pretend you like me and make fun of me behind my back!"  
_

"_That's not true!" Mai protested, tears now starting to run down her face._

_  
"YES IT IS. YES IT IS. HOW ELSE WOULD AZULA HAVE FOUND OUT ABOUT-"_

"_I DI-DIDN'T T-TELL HER! I S-SWEAR! S-SHE WAS W-WATCHING US AND-" _

"WHY SHOULD I BELIEVE YOU?" Zuko's squeaky, prepubescent voice interrupted Mai's hopeless stuttering.

"_Because…" Mai's voice stopped shouting. She sniffed and whipped her eyes, looking at Zuko's back. _

"Because- Azula always lies." The little girl resumed her crying at having said such a horrible thing about her best friend.

Zuko didn't care. Zuko opened the door at the end of the hallway, shot a resentful look at Mai, and shut the door.

_And from the shadows of the corridor where Mai had been left alone, a furious pair of yellow eyes watched with satisfaction. _

Mai frowned and looked out the window of their noisy machine, gently massaging the dull edges of a kunai between her fingertips.

"Azula always lies."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Toph 'watched' the water-tribe boy train with interest, following his every stumbling movement with her earth-sense.

"Still there?" he asked, not bothering to look back. She'd been there for almost an hour now.

Toph didn't like the fact that she was annoying him. She hated to say it but for some reason, since last night, she'd begun to actually like him. A_dmire_ him, even.

Of course, Toph, being a sheltered child, didn't understand that having crushes on older boys was completely normal, and Sokka didn't understand what on earth (haha…earth) would cause Toph to start following him around.

"Hi Sokka! H-hiii Toph" Aang managed.  
Sokka looked at Aang in boredom.

"Oh. Hi Aang. Come to train with Toph some more?"

"Well actual-"

"No! We're done training for the day!" Toph interrupted with a smile.

"Done…training?" both boys said at the same time. That was something not frequently heard from Toph's mouth.

"Yep! So there's plenty more time for you to play with Katara if you want…" Toph suggested.

"Oh! Well…Katara and I are done, I just wanted to see if you want to…take a walk with me or something" Aang said hopefully, blushing.

Toph stared blankly in Sokka's direction.

"Oh- yeah. Suuree…Aang."

Aang waved his hand in front of her face. Not that he was really obstructing her blind view, but Toph swatted it out of the way anyway.

_Weird. _Thought Sokka, watching both of them.  
_First Katara wants to kill me, now Toph's stalking me and Aang look at her like he just got bit by the love bug. I wonder if there's some sickness going around…_

Was he the ONLY sane one anymore?

Momo jumped on his head and tugged his ears.

"Ahh, Momo. At least someone I can rely on" Sokka sighed. Momo's green orbs watched him upside-down from the top of his head, and his furry hand stuck itself in the warrior's ear, picking something out and sticking it in its mouth.

"Or not."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

As the sky darkened and the air grew cold, Zuko watched with mild disappointment as Katara pulled her blue dress back over her white underclothes.

Why was he even here? He should be back with Iroh, making sure his uncle was unharmed. Instead he was staring at some stupid, immature waterbender who was supposed to be his enemy.

Katara looked off into the woods where she probably expected to see him. Or, expected to see the Blue Spirit. That was probably why she hadn't left yet. Female curiosity had no limits. She probably wanted to be 'friends' with her silent acquaintance.

Zuko's fingers traced the contours of his mask, which he held in his hands.

Perhaps he could get her to give him more fish? He and Iroh had finished the last one off for lunch.

What was he thinking?

_Zuko, you're going crazy. Catch one yourself if you're THAT hungry. _

He masked himself and jumped down from his perch.

Spirit-Zuko started to walk off into the woods, looking at the water-tribe girl on the far side of the stream a distance off, who seemed disappointed. He felt a bit guilty.

Why did he even care?

Katara looked sadly off into the woods.

_It's just a dumb guy in a mask. He's crazy if he's out here anyway. I should just leave_.

And Katara turned to do exactly that, before screaming as something sharp ripped past her face.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

A miniature arrow pinned one of her arms to a tree. Another one followed. Katara struggled, managing to unhook one arm and trying to free the other.

A poker-faced Mai raised an eyebrow.

"You know, I was a bit annoyed to see that none of you were at the campsite. But it's much better when you aren't with your whiney brother. At least no one's here to _protect_ you now."

Katara's mouth dropped at the insult.  
"I do NOT need to be protected!"

Water summoned itself from the stream and threw itself haphazardly at Mai. Katara was having trouble at this distance with one of her arms useless.

Mai looked bored. She threw three metal stars at Katara.

With a ripping sound, Katara freed her other arm just in time to protect herself with a shield of ice.

"Looks like you could use some help to _me._"

"Your opinion means _nothing_ to me!"

A slew of mini-arrows were thrown at Katara, who dodged them all but one, which caught and pinned her long braid to the tree.

Katara pulled her hair loose, undoing the braid which begain to fray and unravel itself. While she did this, Mai took the opportunity to throw a kick at the girl's stomach. Needles between each of her fingers, the assassin also took swipes at either side of Katara's face.  
With nowhere to back into, Katara ducked and narrowly avoided the kick. She rolled to the side, stumbling on her skirt as she stood.

"Maybe if you didn't spend so much time making yourself look _pretty_ you'd actually be able to fight" Mai droned.

Katara looked extremely insulted.

"Well EXCUSE ME FOR BEING PRETTIER THAN YOU!"

In the next few seconds, several sharp objects were thrown, water was tossed around, ice was shattered, and neither of the girls noticed a third person enter the fray until they were suddenly separated by a pair of swords.

"Well well well, what do we have here?" Mai asked, amusement suddenly lightening her face.

The Blue Spirit's plastered grin placed evenly between the two girls answered her question without uttering a sound.

* * *

So! What happened to the others, you say? Well, you'll just have to wait and find out!

This is becoming difficult for me to write without making them out of character. Zuko particularly- though logically it would be stupid for him to attack Aang, it's probably something he would do. But I'm keeping him neutral until Iroh heals, because I really don't think he'd get far with four tied up kids and an injured old man.

Oh- the bit with Toph developing a crush on Sokka was unexpected for me, but it seemed kinda logical. She's always making fun of him and I think that it's really more of her childish way of gaining respect for him. Don't worry, there will be no romance between the two, it's a just plot device I'll be using later :P


	4. unwanted third party

Warning- the next part takes place before Mai attacked Katara, it's just Sokka's and Aang/Toph's version of the events. Sometimes the POV times are a little different- for Sokka the sky's beginning to darken, the machine is coming and Aang/Toph are on a walk somewhere.

Lawl, watch as I further continue to create shippings in my frightening story of…scariness. Whatever. ONTO THE NEXT CHAPTER!

* * *

As the roaring machine came to a hault, Azula was surprised to find only one adversary blocking her path.

Sokka was holding his boomerang, about one inch from where the perilously fast-moving vehicle had stopped.

"Well, isn't this a surprise" Azula said with a twisted grin, jumping out from the vehicle.

Sokka didn't move, only raised his weapon.

"Now really, boy, do you think that dinky little toy is going to hurt me?" Azula's fingertips sparked with lightening. The other two girls appeared behind her- Mai's face stoic, Ty Lee's smiling pleasantly.

"Where's your little 'family?' Azula questioned, continuing to walk closer to Sokka. "It's not smart to leave little boys all alone at this hour."

"Whatever you want with Aang- just forget it. I'm not letting you have him!"

Azula lunged forward with expert skill, kicking Sokka's weapon away and holding a threatening hand an inch from his face.  
"Well what a coincidence! I'm not letting YOU have him. I guess we have a lot in common…" Azula grabbed Sokka's chin before the warrior could do anything about it, forcing him to look at her.

"I'll only ask you one more time. Where_ are_ they?"

Sokka aimed an unsuccessful kick at Azula's stomach. Azula charged up her hand and touched his chest, pushing him away almost gently. She didn't need force- the lightening would hurt enough.

Sokka fell to the ground with a loud scream at the burning touch, but she had purposefully spared his life.

"Kinda cute, isn't he Ty Lee?" Azula whispered to her friend with a sadistic smile. The evil princess's eyes followed what looked like an orange and green bird in the sky. Satisfied, she gestured to Mai to follow.

And with that, Sokka was left alone with the acrobat.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Aang smiled at Toph. Toph made a noise similar to that of an impatient horse.

"So…Toph…"

"…"

They'd been walking around for quite some time and all Aang could produce from her was a few awkward insults. He wanted desperately to gain her respect, get to know her as a friend rather than a teacher, but she didn't want to talk to him.

"It's getting dark."

"I wouldn't know" she lied.

Aang looked up into the sky, which was in perfect view as they had entered a clearing in the woods, and suddenly grabbed Toph's hand.

"Have you ever flown before?"

Toph looked a bit startled at such a weird question.

"Uhm. _No_…other than on the flying mop's back, I've never been in the air…"

Aang grinned. "That's GREAT! I can show you right now!"

"Show me wha-aaa!"

Toph suddenly found herself blinded as Aang opened his glider, secured his grip on her arms, and with a blast of bending, flew them up into the night sky.

"Isn't this _great_ Toph!"

Toph looked about ready to throw up. Her usual 'in-your-face' attitude had vanished for pure fear- suddenly the earthbender had found herself isolated from her element with nothing to guide her but the crazy Avatar. She had _no_ idea how high up they were, what was below them, how fast they were going-

She was blind.

Completely and utterly helpless.

Unable to speak, all Toph could do was return Aang's deathgrip on both of her arms, close her eyes, and pray that it would end soon.

But it didn't. And Toph's heart began to calm down, and her fear dulled.

She wasn't enjoying herself, but she didn't feel panicked either.

"Do you trust me?" Aang questioned curiously.

"I…guess" Toph answered. "Just…don't drop me or anything…"

Aang smiled. Through his skin, Toph understood this and began to enjoy herself. Perhaps it was safe to say that she had to take her feet off the ground at some point. Toph prided herself at being brave. Sometimes bravery means willing to take a step in the dark.

"Oh no…" Aang's voice became dead serious.

"What? What, are we going to crash, are we going to-"

"The machine! I didn't see it at first, I was too busy steering and you couldn't feel it without your earth-sense…"

"WHAT?"

And that's when they heard Sokka scream.  
"He's in trouble!" Aang shouted, looking for a place to land them. "We've gotta help!"

"What about Katara! She's still by the river, isn't she?"

"I'll help her, you get Sokka!"

Toph felt herself being dropped from Aang's grip. She struggled to hold on to him but realized a second later that her feet were touching the ground.

She knew where Sokka was, she felt Katara, who was almost a mile away, she felt the machine, the alien footsteps of the three new girls. She smelled the smoke it was spewing, she felt the darkening sky…she felt Aang as he took off in the direction of the river.

"Be careful, twinkletoes!" Toph shouted to the Airbender. "Please…" she whispered.

Aang heard. He didn't _hear_, but he heard. He heard it as his heart pounded in his chest, as his became part of the wind. He didn't _feel_ the words, but he felt them. He felt them as he dodged trees that he didn't even see, jumped over rocks that he didn't even know were there…

Aang had entered the woods _blind_.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Awkwardness eeked from this situation and Zuko wondered what the hell he'd just done.

The Blue Spirit simply grinned annoyingly in response to this inner struggle. Mai and Katara…were silent. Both of them looked at him as though they expected him to initiate the next move.

What did he care if they killed each other? This was the girl who had knocked him unconscious during a blizzard and wanted to leave him there! This was the girl who had befriended him when he was little and had chosen to stay with his sick, evil sister after his 'accident.'

The girls had forgotten their struggle at his interruption, and Zuko had forgotten why he was even here. The Blue Spirit told him to stay silent. _Put the weapons down and back away. Let them finish this themselves._

Zuko did just that.

Mai smirked.  
"Looks like your little friend didn't come to save you after all."

"He's NOT my friend!" Katara protested. "I-I mean, he's not here to rescue me. Is he?"

Katara didn't know how right she was about them not being friends. All she knew of him was a masked man who had tried to steal some fish from her. The mask was what kept them neutral. Without it there, they were a circle of enemies.

Zuko wanted them dead. He wanted to wipe the deadpan look off of Mai's face. He wanted to marr Katara's stupid shocked expression. He wanted them out of his way, so he could kill his sister and capture the Avatar.

But the Blue Spirit didn't.

The Spirit had never wanted _anyone_ dead. He had never _wanted_ this war that he was born into. He didn't _want _to see these two girls tear each other apart.

The blue Spirit shook his head to Katara. He sheathed his swords and backed up, crossing his arms.

The battled continued.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Sokka groaned, grasping his stomach.  
He couldn't lose this. He had to stand up and fight!  
If not for him, then for Aang. For Katara, and Toph. For _Yue_.

Although he had been electrocuted the warrior somehow found the strength to stand up and look at Ty Lee with determination.

"That's nice and all" she said, not really managing to mask her concern, "But I still have to kill you."

Ty Lee lunged forward, sending a kick at Sokka's face. The injured warrior grabbed her leg and swung her backwards. Ty Lee landed catlike, tumbled expertly, and immediately bounded back up, cartwheeling towards him.

Sokka bent down and picked up his boomerang surprisingly quickly, now ignoring his pain. He threw it at her and purposefully missed. Ty Lee stopped her attack, looked at his obviously terrible throw, and raised an eyebrow.

She looked _disappointed_.

"I thought you would be better than that" Ty Lee pouted. Before getting struck in the shoulder by the weapon's return attack.

"I am."

Ty Lee's shoulder was bleeding, but she was still in better shape than him. Lunging forward and pinching underneath his shoulder, she disabled Sokka's left arm. He swung it limply in protest, the listless appendage hitting her in the face comically. She pinched his other arm.

Sokka headbutted Ty Lee, who stumbled back dizzily.

"Woo, your heard is hard."  
"I exercise it 24 hours a day!' Sokka said proudly. Ty Lee groaned.

"That was cheesy."

Sokka aimed to kick her. She pinched his leg.

"Damnit!"

Now having nothing left but his other leg, Sokka realized that he was, indeed, losing.

Ty Lee disarmed his last leg. Sokka slumped up against a tree for balance, straining to keep himself standing.

The girl merely stared at him.

"Ok…so aren't you going to finish me off?"

'No. I don't _feel_ like it."

She sounded exactly like Toph.  
Great. I have _another_ stalker.

Ty Lee walked closer to him. She reached out her hand, cupping his chin and looked into his eyes.

"You're pretty" she said simply, and planted a rather passionate kiss on Sokka's lips.

_What the hell?_

Ty Lee's lips still didn't budge from his. Her eyes locked with his, which were looking rather franticly back and forth, not knowing what to do.

Not that there was anything wrong with being kissed by a pretty girl, in normal circumstances, but-

"What. The. Hell."

Ty Lee pulled away just in time to see a very angry earthbender wham her in the stomach with a rock

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

_Run all you want_ the sadistic firenation girl thought, hearing the windy approach of the Avatar. _But I'll catch you._

And with that, a lightning bolt cut Aang's senseless path to Katara in half.  
"AAAahhH!" the Avatar protested, falling flat on his face to avoid being fried. He looked up and spat out a mouth full of leaves at the sight of Azula, to say rather unenthusiastically "oh. You."

Azula looked a bit annoyed at the 'oh. You.' If she had scripted the encounter she would've preferred a little more fear and perhaps something about her being his greatest enemy…

"Do you mind, my friend is in danger" he said matter-of-factly.

"So are you" Azula spat.  
Aang looked back and forth.

"Really? I see no danger…HEY- if there's something you're holding out on then-"

Azula roared, charging up her hands with more lightening and aiming two more bolts at the Avatar.

"Uhh…I'm up here" Aang said from his new perch in a tall tree.  
"Come down and fight then!"

"See, I can't. My friends are in danger and I don't like to leave them alone when psycho girls are attacking them…"

Azula promptly severed the tree in half with her flaming lightening hands.

"Woah!" Aang said, his eyes wide, as he landed with an air-induced balance and the tree fell down.  
"That's more like it" Azula growled.

Aang put up his hands in a forced truce.

"I don't want to fight you…"

"That's too bad."

Five seconds later, the trees around them were up in flames.

"See…that's kinda bad. You ever heard of _Karma_?" Aang gestured to the flaming wilderness around them.

"Are you trying to piss me off?" Azula gritted.

"Yeah, is it working? Because it took twice as long for Zhao and you know, he's dead."

Azula nailed the Avatar in the shoulder with a lightning bolt. The smell of burnt flesh was reached Azula's nostrils and she smiled in satisfaction.

Aang attempted to blow her out of the way. She dodged. A few bending attacks later, neither was further hurt.

The earth rocked, Azula dodged. Fire was thrown, Aang dodged. The Avatar wished he had some water to douse the fire, but his wishes were still with Katara, whom he could only hope was unhurt.

"Sad that the Avatar can't even beat a little princess"  
"You're not a princess, you're psychotic" Aang protested, before being hit in the stomach with a lightening bolt.

The little boy doubled over in pain. Azula walked over to him, prepared to finish him off.

"I won't kill you" she cooed in a falsely kind voice. "Because we need to keep you alive until Sozen's comet arrives. But this is still going to hurt."

Aang shut his eyes. The pain never came.

"Why don't you pick on someone who _wants_ to fight you, Azula" came a raspy-sounding voice.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Katara was bleeding in three places. Her hair was completely wild now. Mai's arms were temporarily encased in a block of ice. She was completely soaked.

The watertribe girl winced as she pulled a foot long needle out of her arm, refusing to look at the warm blood that she felt seeping into her robes. Water was summoned from the stream. She healed herself as Mai broke her ice handcuffs by slamming them on a tree.

The Blue Spirit watched.

"You can't even take a little pain. Typical."

"That's easy for you to say. You aren't hurt."

"Well it's not my fault you can't hurt me, is it?"

Mai's wet clothes hardened as Katara's breath turned them to ice. Katara dodged as three kunai were thrown at various parts of her body.

The Blue spirit watched.

"Hmph" Mai breathed.

A moment of silence.

Mai eyed Katara. She reached into her sleeves. Katara prepared to protect herlself.

But the next attack wasn't for her.  
Three arrows were aimed at the Blue Spirit.

One lodged itself in his shoulder. Another he managed to dodge, although he hadn't expected to be attacked at all. Another lodged itself dead center in his mask.

Katara watched as the man's disguise began to crack.  
"Why did you attack him?" Katara shouted at Mai.  
"He was annoying me" she said simply.

The Spirit looked unphased, but that was mostly his mask. Zuko himself was quite shocked. His arm touched his injury with curiosity, gloved fingers growing warm with blood.

Katara iced the girl over again, this time catching Mai's entire body in water. Mai, unable to move, watched as Katara moved over to the injured man.

"Let me see your arm."

The spirit pulled away from her.

"DAMNIT, I'm trying to help you! You shouldn't be here anyway!"

The sound of ice cracking reached Katara's ears. The water-tribe girl ripped the arrow out of the man's skin.

More ice cracking.

"So you are human after all."

The spirit resisted her touch, and she looked hopelessly into the stare of his cracking mask. She didn't care if she had his permission or not. Water pooled onto his arm.

The blood washed away. The wound was healed.

Something sharp stung the back of Katara's neck.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Oh. You have a girlfriend."

"No, that's just Toph" Sokka explained with a sarcastic cheeriness. "Scary girl, Toph. Toph, scary girl."

"My name is Ty Lee" the 'scary girl' said indignantly.

"Ty Lee? That's a pretty name" Toph said sweetly. Before putting a wall of stone between Sokka and Ty Lee.

"You see, that's not helping any!" Sokka protested, now having little room to move away from the tree that Toph's wall had pinned him to, _in edition_ to having useless muscles.

"I think you've been _enough_ help" Toph said bitterly, focusing her attention on the angry pink acrobat. "All right, lovergirl, game over. Surrender now."

Ty Lee raised an eyebrow.  
"You think I'm going to give up because a blind girl half my size just called me lovergirl at hit me with a pebble?" The firenation girl's words were light and bouncy. This irritated Toph. A lot.

Toph growled, bending several large boulders towards Ty Lee, who dodged them through various acrobatic means. Toph tried to sink her in quicksand- Ty Lee skimmed over it like a feather.

The little eartbender suddenly found her arm being pinched twice by her enemy.

Toph rolled her eyes.

"Oh! You just _poked_ me. I feel like_ dieing_" she said sarcastically, trying to create an earthquake with her arms.

And failing.

"Aw shit…"

Ty Lee kicked the poor girl in the back, and pinched her behind the knees. Toph fell.

"I feel a bit bad for hurting a small blind child" she said sympathetically. "But you're also a bit vicious, and you deserved it."

Ty Lee stood back to admire her handiwork, only to find herself in a rather violent embrace from the recovering Sokka.

"If you can't use your hands, you can't hurt anyone" he muttered into her ear.

"But see, I kinda like this" she giggled.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

In the onslaught of darkness lit by forest fire, Aang could hardly recognize the face of his 'rescuer.' But the growling old voice was something he clearly remembered from previous encounters.

"Oh. Great" Azula said, similarly to Aang's reaction to her previous attack. "A crippled old man is lecturing me on who to attack."

The 'crippled old man' extinguished the fires in the trees surrounding them with one sweep of his stubby arms.

"This is not your day to capture the Avatar" Iroh said calmly. "I advise you leave now."

"I decline your advice" Azula said with false honor, bowing to Iroh and grinning impishly.

"Then we have no choice but to fight."

Aang rubbed his injured arm, not knowing what to expect from the two firebenders. The young airbender watched the rush of red and blue fading and flaring as the two enemies masterfully manipulated their elements. He couldn't move, merely stared at them like a rabbit would at a wolf and fox, not sure who to root for.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Katara was now unconscious in The Blue Spirit's arms.

Mai was smiling, her boredom finally alleviated

Zuko felt disgusted. Blood trickled down the girl's neck. Was she dead? Why had she helped him? Why the hell had he stayed and watched anyway?

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't waste my time trying to defend your little girlfriend. Hand her over?"

Mai's voice was a bit too…nice.

If he handed her over, Mai would capture her and there would be one less person for him to worry about when he went after the Avatar.

But if he handed her over, Azula would probably get the Avatar anyway and he'd never even have a chance.

Still, what use was she to him?

Mai sighed in boredom at his 'thinking.'

A bored Mai was a dangerous Mai. He needed to make his decision fast.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Sokka and Ty Lee were once again fighting, while Toph sat impatiently on the ground, waiting for her bending abilities to return.

"C'mon Sokka, use your head!" she coached him, impatiently pounding the dirt while Sokka swung his machete at Ty Lee.

Some flipping and punching and useless attacks from both of them later, Sokka yelled back at her.  
"What do you think I'm DOING?"

"NO! Stop _thinking _and _use your HEAD_!" Toph shouted.

Sokka stopped for a second to think of what Toph was talking about, and Ty Lee got his arm.  
"damnit!"

Once again, Sokka headbutted the circus girl, who stumbled backward dizzily.

"That's it, brickbrains!"

Sokka slammed the girl again. And again.

"umph" Ty Lee managed, before falling to the ground.

'Hey! It worked!"

"Of course it worked, dumbass."

Toph stood up and massaged her arms where they'd been pinched.

"I think my bending's coming back."

Sokka looked at the unconscious girl before picking her up. "What should we do with her?" he asked, readjusting her so that her body hung limply over his back.

"Tie her up. See if we can trade her for a truce?"  
"That's completely stupid."  
"You just want to hang on to her so you two can _kiss _again"

"HEY- I didn't ask for that"

"Because guys totally hate being kissed by pretty girls"  
"How do you even KNOW she's pretty?"

"Well you just admitted to it, didn't you?"

"Why do you even care? Let's just find Aang and Katara and get rid of her before something bad happens"  
"You mean besides you making out with the enemy?"  
"Shut up _shut up_! You don't even-"  
"neenerneener neeenerrrI can't heearrrr youu"

"your SO immature!-"

"you're so dididididiwhatever sockface"

_And so, Sokka and Toph continued to bicker all the way back to the campsite. _


	5. I never wanted this

This chapter is going to be the last 'action' chapter for a while. I just wrote it so there may be a few mistakes- I proofread but anything I write is still subject to change.

Lolz disclaimer: I don't own Avatar. But Avatar owns me. That's not a very fair trade D:

_

* * *

Idiot_ Mai thought irritably, chasing her adversary in the most likely direction for him to have SPRUNG OFF to. 

Honestly, she didn't understand why he'd want to protect the girl.

Yeah, he was an enemy to the fire nation, and yeah, he wanted to have the Avatar safefrom what she'd heard, but the waterbender was pretty much worthless.

Then again, since they were both stupid and both bad fighters…maybe he _liked_ her. Mai snickered.

_I'll NEVER fall for someone as stupid as him _she thought cockily, remembering her long-held crush, Zuko. _At least I always made **good** choices...I just wasn't good enough for **him**, that's all…_

Mai spotted her target and aimed three arrows at him. To her surprise he immediately blocked them with one broadsword.

_Ok, so perhaps he's not such a bad fighter…_

"This is getting old, can you _please_ just hand her over?" Mai droned monotonously.

The Blue Spirit stopped in his tracks as though contemplating this.

Before vanishing from sight again.

Mai rolled her eyes.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"This is my favorite rope, because it's nearly inescapable" Sokka said as he tied Ty Lee's arms to her sides several times over.  
He didn't mention that he'd stolen it from Zuko when he'd untied Aang during that blizzard… But hey! It was _quality rope_.

Toph shook her head. "When you're done playing rough with your little girlfriend, we should probably find Aang and Katara."

"Oh! Yeah…"

Sokka finished the knot. Ty Lee stirred and her head lifted to look piteously at Sokka.  
"We should take her with us. Maybe they'll want her back…I mean, what are _we_ going to do with her?"

Toph snickered and muttered something under her breath.

"Well, look. I'll give her back to the nearest psychopath I can find, and hopefully they'll exchange her for peace."

Toph looked around the campsite.  
"No. I don't think they'll leave us alone. We're already weak. They'll take the opertunity to strike us down the second they get it. We need to get out of here as soon as possible…"  
Sokka nodded.

"So I'll pack up camp and Appa and I will meet you when we find you, Aang, and Katara."

"I'll give you some sort of signal."  
"Whistle three times, like this." Sokka put his fingers in his mouth and did a sharp bird call.

Toph nodded, imitating the gesture.

"Go find Aang! Katara can take care of herself, but the leader girl is even crazier than the other two!'

Toph was already running off into the woods towards the Avatar.

Sokka sighed and continued to pack up camp, before he heard a soft voice coming from his prisoner.

"I never wanted any of this."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Aang found the courage to stand up, wincing in pain at his burns but ignoring them, knowing Katara would be there to heal them later.

_Katara…_

"You have no honor, Azula. You cheat and lie, and _manipulate_ the only people who care about you. I have no fear of death, but I know you won't be the one to kill me. Not tonight."

Azula smirked.  
"You never do stop rambling" she said to Iroh in an almost affectionate voice as the two continued to battle.

"I'm old! My spirit threatens to fly out my mouth at times."

Iroh shot a wall of fire towards Azula, who jump-flipped over it and landed in the pose of a tiger, ready to strike.

"That was impressive. Are you as good as your friend Ty Lee at acrobatics yet?"

Azula looked ready to shoot daggers out of her eyes. She hated Ty Lee for being better than her. She wanted to rip that girl's pretty hair out of her scalp and strangle her with it.

Instead of responding, she shot a lightening bolt towards Iroh's chest.

In one fluid motion, the old man directed the blue fire back towards her.

Azula ducked just in time, the top of her hair smoking. The tree behind her splintered with the force of their combined attack.

"You'll PAY for that."

"I'm sorry to say I'm _broke_, but I'm sure your hair will grow back sometime. Zuko's is doing quite well, you should see it!" Iroh said with a cheeky grin.

"I already have."  
Azula decided to ignore him and finish off the Avatar.

Only…she had missed the point of Iroh's fighting with her. He was trying to _distract _her.

The Avatar was gone.

Azula's shriek could be heard from five miles away.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Toph's footsteps thundered precariously through the woods. She began to pant. Aang was fast. He was running and she was losing her sense of him.  
She wanted to shout out but if he was in trouble and she distracted him…

She was distracting Aang a little too easily lately.

There were more setsoffootsteps nearby. One was fairly normal. The other was rather sluggish. She recognized both, but neither of them were Katara or Aang.

Toph headed in the direction her earth sense was taking her, and when one set nearedit, she created defensive sinksand around her.

A surprised 'umph' and a splat told her the trap had worked.

"Hey! It's you again!" said a cheerful voice.  
"Old man?" she said questioningly.

"It's Iroh. I thought I told you that" he mused, wiping muck from his face.

"What in the name of all things humane are you doing out in the forest by yourself? Where is this infamous nephew of yours that won't leave my friends alone? He left you alone when you were injured?"

Toph sounded a mixture of enraged and concerned. Both were rather unusual for the snarky little earthbender.  
but she _liked_ Iroh.

"Oh…heh heh…he's off chasing some girl. I've known about it for a while now but I never let him know I know, you know?"  
"No…"

Iroh chuckled again. Toph offered him her hand and pulled him out of the muck with a bizarre smacking sound.  
He groaned.  
Toph's mocking tone changed to concern.

"Look…I know he's your enemy but I need to know about my friend Aang. Have you seen him?"

Iroh frowned.  
"Yes, I have seen him. He's injured and being perused by a ravenous psychopath who wants to capture him and keep him prisoner until the arrival of a comet that will give the fire nation absolute power" he said in a tired voice.

"So…no pressure…Hey- need a ride?" she asked suddenly.

Iroh cocked an eyebrow. The little earthbender put her fingers to her lips and whistled sharply three times.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

It was a full moon, and he was riding Appa with a crazy girl, but for some reason Sokka was

n't as depressed as he thought he'd be. Perhaps because he was too busy worrying about his sister and Aang.  
Not Toph, Toph would rip someone's gizzards out with millions of rock fragments and grind their skin off with sand before they ever laid hands on her, but Aang and Katara had this annoying tendency of…trying to make friends with the enemy.

He'd _never_ talk friendly to a firebender. _Never._

"So…" started Ty Lee, who had been silent most of the time, and hadn't really tried to escape. "You really like your friends, huh?"

"Yeah" said Sokka in a confused voice. "Usually that's what happens seeing as, you know, they're your _friends_."

Ty Lee looked upset.

"Not for me."

Sokka frowned, turning around from his navigation and looking at the unhappy circus girl.

"What do you mean?" His voice was curious, but not compassionate.

Ty Lee shook her head.

"When you're with Azula…you have to pretend to like her. Everything she says is right- you aren't allowed to have an opinion, a personality. You're just a branch of Azula, doing what she wants you to do."

"Why don't you just leave then?"

"I can't."

"Because…she'd kill you."

"worse."

Sokka quirked an eyebrow.  
"What could be worse?"

Ty Lee shook her head again, trying to wipe some dirt from her cheek, which was stinging. It was impossible without her hands. She began to cry.

"hey- hey! I'm sorry. Look, don't do that. Why don't you come with us if it's that bad!"

Sokka jumped down from Appa's head and joined her into the cargo area.  
_what are you doing? This is stupid, she's a crazed firebender-_

_who is crying and tied up. _

_yeah, yeah. Don't come crying to me when she bites you or something_…

"I can't do that. She'll find me no matter where I go. She doesn't want me to be happy. She won't let me go until I become obsolete- useless. _Then_ she'll kill me. When I'm no longer useful."

Sokka wiped the dirt from the girl's cut with his sleeve. She smiled.

"I guess you aren't that bad. I always thought that fire-nation people killed because they wanted to." Sokka looked a bit angry.

Ty Lee frowned.  
"Most of us don't even want this war any more than you do."

Sokka sighed, the angry look not leaving his face. Hands shaking, he pulled out his knife. Ty Lee closed her eyes, expecting him to kill her.

The sound of him cutting through rope was all she heard.

"if you want to leave, you can."

Ty Lee paused, rubbing her free arms and looking at him with big brown eyes overwhelmed by surprise.

_You were always too emotional, Ty Lee…_  
"I would rather be here with you than with any of them." Not thinking, the enemy wrapped her arms around Sokka's neck and buried her head into his chest, continuing to cry.

Sokka wasn't sure what to do. He patted her back, wondering if she was going to stab him. But her 'show,' if it was one, was awfully compelling. He felt really bad for her. _Really_ bad.

Eventually she let go and turned her back to him, and he climbed back onto Appa's head.  
Toph's whistle reached his ears.  
"That's my cue."

Sokka dipped Appa down towards the direction of the earthbender's call.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Zuko panted behind his mask, back against a particularly large tree.

Katara must've weighed about a thousand tons. Probably all that seal fat those water-tribe peasants stored in their bodies during the cold winters. Or the fact that she was wearing such a heavy dress. Fire nation people wore light clothing and armor to make their movements faster.

Had he lost Mai? She didn't seem to be perusing him any longer. Perhaps she'd given up. Katara didn't mean anything to her.

Zuko blanched. Wait- she didn't mean anything to him either.

Katara rolled over in his arms and groaned.

"Aang?"

Zuko wanted to drop her, but he'd committed to the act of saving her so far. It would be dishonorable to drop her in the middle of the forest when he'd already taken her out of the way of her element. She couldn't heal the wound on her neck without water, and she was still bleeding.

"I never wanted this" he muttered to himself, lifting up his mask for air. The first words he'd spoken for hours. The air was cool against his sweaty face. He imagined that he smelled terrible, but Katara didn't smell like a bed of roses either.

Zuko tore fabric off the black portion of his outfit and continued to tear it up to his elbow. He wrapped the fabric around Katara's neck. All it was really doing was soaking up the blood, but he was no nurse. He knew _nothing_ about treating wounds beyond common sense. Which meant…stop the bleeding.

He noticed a pool growing on the back portion of her dress, which was torn a bit. Might as well get that one too.

He attempted to rip the hole in the dress bigger but really couldn't get a look at the cut.

The dress would have to come off.

Zuko growled and remembered she had that white training outfit on underneath. He lifted the bulky dress over her body, causing it to get stuck on her head, and grumbled to himself. Finally he freed her from the dress and examined the wound on her back.

It wasn't deep at _all_. It was just one of those wounds that bled a lot. He wiped up some of the blood with his sleeve.

_This is what I get for being a nice person. _

The masked man flipped her over again and lifted her up, smacking her ckeek lightly a few times in effort to wake her up.

"No Toph…I'm not going to eat that" Katara managed weekly.  
Zuko twitched, wondering what on earth her delirious mind was imagining.

He was pretty sure he heard voices nearby.  
Standing up and throwing the now scantily clad girl over his back, he continued to make his way to the Avatar's camp site. The last thing he needed was some delirious girl clinging to him.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"What on EARTH are you doing with HIM?" Sokka bellowed in confusion.

"Oh, who, me?" Iroh said good-naturedly. "If I'm being a burden then I'll be happy to-"

"Shut up Sokka! You untying that freak girl is no worse than me helping a crippled old man"

"Hey- in my defense" Iroh started before being interrupted by Sokka.

"You were supposed to find _Aang_. You know, the _Avatar_. The one that that girl-"  
"Azula!" piped Ty Lee

"_Azula,_ is trying to _kill-_"

"Excuse me" started Iroh gently

"Well I'm sorry, I just wanted to help a _friend_ who was helping us _protect_ the Avatar-"

"Excuse me" Iroh tried again

"Oh, yeah! A _friend_ who is the _mentor_ for the scarfaced boy who is always _stalking_ us, _and trying to KILL US_!-"

"**_EXCUSE ME!" _**Iroh bellowed. A few birds were startled from their sleep and flapped away from their perches. Sokka, Toph and Ty Lee all quieted to look at the old man in astonishment. He grinned and waved sheepishly.

"I know where the Avatar went."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Azula was getting really tired of this. Really, really tired. The last thing she needed right now was being interrupted by her old uncle only to find that her prey had escaped.

And she had been SO CLOSE!

Wait-

The firenation girl heard a stirring from the bushes nearby.

A grin grew on her wicked face as she neared said shrubbage.

"Why don't you just come out and face me instead of hiding" Azula started, ready to pounce.

Before something furry jumped out and landed on her face.

Azula shrieked and began firing lightning in random directions, and the furry thing climbed on top of her head, making chirping noises. Its tail hung between Azula's eyes and she grabbed it, pulling the clawing thing out of her hair, which was as of now, ruined.

Surveying the creature, she discovered it to be a lemur. A big, ugly thing with wings and green eyes. It waved at her and then stuck its hand in its mouth, before trying to climb up its tail and onto her arm.

Azula shrieked againand dropped the creature, and it scurried off into the woods.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Momo found himself a bit disappointed. The nice lady had smelled so deliciously of cheese, he had hoped she was hiding some in her ears. Unfortunately, he found no such delectables on her person.

Oh well. There was Aang! The rodent scurried towards the Avatar and climbed up his back. The Avatar peeled Momo's fingers off his eyes, probably wondering why the creature was being so skittish.

Boy, tonight had been crazy! He had quite a story to tell Appa. Momo reached into Aang's shirt to find the bison whistle. Aang reached in a pulled him out, looking confused and a bit freaked out.

"Guurshmuurrshmuurssh booder" Aang said slowly, patting him on the head and putting him on his shoulder. Momo looked at him. Humans were irritating, nothing they said ever made sense.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Heh heh, I've always wanted to ride this thing" Iroh chuckled as he pointed Sokka in the direction where Aang had run.

"Hey look! There he is!" said Sokka.

"I don't see him" Toph said, annoyed.

"Of COURSE you don't!" Sokka said, exasperated. "Aang! Up here!"

The airbender looked up as the shadow of the buffalo passed over him. He took out his glider and prepared to fly, when something sharp struck his side.

"Not so fast."

The Avatar spun around just in time to see Mai, sharp objects and all, grab him around the stomach and hold something pointy to his throat.

"I don't understand why this is so troublesome. Just give yourself up so I can get back to being bored" the girl complained.

Aang looked seriously perturbed.  
"Th-that's ok. I don't think you want to kill me anyway" he tried.

"No, really. I do" Mai said stoaicly.

Appa landed near the two.

"Let her go!" Sokka bellowed. Toph jumped off of Appa, ready to strike.

Ty Lee rolled her eyes. She grabbed Sokka and put her face close to his, forcing his arms to wrap around her in a threatening way.  
"Play along" she whispered into his ear. "**Oww! Get off of me**!"  
Sokka didn't understand at first. _She'd _thrown _her_ arms around _him_, and now _she_ was asking _him_ to get off of _her_? Like a math equation this played out in his head and he tried to make sense of it.

Then Mai's attention turned to him.  
"Mai, he's got me by the neck!" she shouted. Sokka grabbed Ty Lee around the neck, finally catching on. He pulled out his knife again, holding it to her throat.  
"Hand over the Avatar and I'll let her go!" he bellowed in a super-tough manly guy voice. Toph rolled her eyes.

Mai sighed.  
"Ty Lee, you can't even defend yourself?" She said in an annoyed, flat voice. She poked Aang with her double-bladed weapon, and he began to bleed a little. This _still_ wasn't very fun…

"He Slammed me in the head five times! I didn't even have a chance!"

Mai rolled her eyes.  
"Whatever, Ty. If you want to take the heat from Azula later…"

Ty Lee grimaced.

"You know as well as I do, she's going to be angry no matter what."

Mai let go of Aang and pushed him towards the buffalo rather violently.  
"Fine. Whatever. Take the stupid kid."

Sokka let go of Ty Lee, who bounded down from Appa and threw her arms around Mai. Mai sighed.

"Whatever, Ty, let's go find Azula."

Toph threw her arms around Aang, who blushed furiously.

"Don't EVER scare me like that again, twinkletoes."  
"I scared _you_?" said Aang, sounding rather proud of himself.  
Toph sniffed, nodding. Her soft babyish face was scrunched up. She proceeded to smack him across the cheek and make her way back to Appa.

"Now we need to find Katara" Sokka said seriously. "And get this old fuddy-duddy back to Zuko before the boy goes homicidal."

Mai's voice turned around. She heard the word 'Zuko.'

As though she'd been smacked in the head, it all made sense now. The Blue Spirit, him not wanting to help of attack either of the girls, but still getting involved in the fight-it was Zuko! That's why he refused to speak, and why he kept himself masked…how many other boys would be out in the forest this time of night? He was the right size and build for Zuko…it all made sense now.

Mai felt a pangof jealousy, angry that he had chosen Katara over her, but stifled it with a smirk. Two could play this game...  
"I know where your friend is" shetaunted the people on the buffalo. "But you might not like it…"

"Where is she?" shouted Aang, but Mai and Ty Lee continued to walk away. "Wait! Come back!"

"If one hair on Katara's head is hurt, I swear!-" Sokka threatened the girls.

It was too late. They were both gone.

* * *

Ok guys, I know I don't say a lot to you but I've really appreciated your comments, construction and help! It's what keeps me writing! 

that little Momo bit was unexpected and random. I dunno, I felt like putting something from his perspective in since I leave him out a lot XD

oh- Mai doesn't mean she knows WHERE katara is, but who she's with. She's just trying to piss them off, since she's mad Zuko didn't want to help her.

So thanks, I'll take everything you say into consideration, and keep reviewing!


	6. losses and findings

Mwahahahhaha! I made you WAIT for this chapter. Actually, I've been busy. Got a job and crap. And…was short on inspiration. But people kept prodding me to update

so I was all "STFizzuck up!"

and they were all "no wai"

and I was all "u aint ghetto enuff fo dis hot shit"

and they were all "bitch plz"

so…I wrote a new chapter:D

Thanks for all the reviews on the last one

* * *

Zuko had begun to slow significantly. He knew the Avatar's camp was somewhere around here. It had to be. Delirious and tired from what was now is second sleepless night, Zuko slumped against a tree to take a momentary rest.  
Bad idea.

_Perhaps a few seconds of sleep wouldn't hurt…_he thought groggily, his arms subconsciously wrapping around Katara as though she were his blanket.

_No! Keep focused, Zuko! The Avatar! Revenge against your sister!_

The firebender moaned before putting his clothed head against the tree.

"Just five minutes" he protested, eyes blinking shut behind the blue spirit mask.

Zuko's inner self became a little squeak but continued to jabber inside his head.

_Iroh, Avatar, Azula, Iroh, Avatar, waterbende-Azula!_

The banished prince swatted a bug on the side of his face, yawned, and passed out.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The buffalo had landed back at camp. Aang and Toph had gone to search for Katara by the river. Iroh and Sokka were in the woods, doing the same.  
"You know, I had fun tonight" the old man lamented.  
"Oh yeah, sure! If being chased by scary girls, hanging out with old loonies and losing your sister is fun, I'm having loads of fun!"

Iroh chuckled. "You know, you remind me of-"

"Don't say it." Sokka made a 'talk to the hand' gesture and pouted. He didn't want to be compared to Zuko.

"I was going to say a cup of jackass bitter tea. You see, it tastes _horrible_, but it keeps the mosquitoes away!"

"So…you're saying I taste horrible" said Sokka, scratching his head.  
"No, I was saying that although you're bitter you have a beneficial value."

Sokka contemplated this as he stared blankly into the sky. It was almost dawn, the moon was slowly setting. The full moon. Sokka felt as though his heart was sinking with it.

Iroh's eyes followed those of the young warrior.

'I have not been able to look at the full moon the same every since-"  
"Don't say it."

Iroh hushed and looked a bit downcast.  
"Hiding from your memories is no way to bring back the ones you love."

Sokka's face twitched furiously.

"What do YOU know!You're _firenation_! You people take away _everyone_ who means _anything_ to me. My _parents_. My _girlfriend_. And now my _sister!" _

"I know more than you think I do."  
"Yeah well that's not saying much because I think you know _nothing_."

Iroh looked like he had been bitten by a snake. He turned away from Sokka, shaking his head.

"You _are_ like Zuko. The world is full of problems yet you only see your own. There are stones at the bottom of the river, child! You may not see them until you're drowning, but they're still there!"

Sokka had shut up, his thoughtful blue eyes focused on Iroh's face.

"There are two children back there that need your wisdom. Even if something has happened to your sister, you must look past it and help what you still have. You can't go through life clinging to what you've lost. Otherwise you will never see the stones, never push yourself back up to the surface!"

Sokka bowed his head in shame.

"You're right."  
"_What_?" said Iroh in confusion. This couldn't be the stubborn warrior boy he'd first seen at the south pole. The boy who'd charged repeatedly at Zuko even though he'd clearly lost. Who seemed to have a boomerang permanently crammed up his-

"You're right."

A paused passed between them.

"You know, I never actually expected that speech to work."  
"I know."

Both men looked at each other, then at the horizon. Red and blue. Young and old. Opposite elements.  
The moon set over the treetops.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Toph and Aang skirted the edges of the river, looking for signs of Katara.

"She was definitely here" said Toph, noting the disrupted footprints along side the river.

"She's not here anymore." Aang's fingers plucked a few sharp objects out of the surrounding trees. "She fought that weapons girl."

Toph had bent down and began to trace her fingers over the ground. "That doesn't explain what happened to her. When we met the weapons girl she was alone."

Suddenly remembering this, Aang felt shocked.  
"You're right! And she said-"  
"She knows where Katara is, but we might not like it." Toph's pale eyes widened as her earth sense detected something unusual under her fingertips.

"That Azula girl must've gotten her! She's CRAZY. The only reason she didn't electrocute me into a vegetable was because _Iroh_ stepped in!"

The sun had begun to rise, warming Aang's bald head. The night had been cold, but Aang was sweating with worry for Katara.  
"Hey, Aang?"

Aang's eyes shut as he detected a disturbance. Toph had just called him Aang. Not twinkletoes or airhead or fancy dancer…Aang.  
"Yeah?" he asked, his voice trembling.  
"I found blood."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Azula and Co. had gathered back at the machine. Ty Lee and Azula looked pretty messed-up. Mai looked, as usual, unharmed and bored.

"What happened to _you_?" she asked Azula, aware that her sarcastic tone would be punished later, but not caring.

"Lemur" the bitch said sweetly, fire practically seeping out of her eyes.  
"I dunno, Azula, I like your hair down! It looks so pretty, you should wear it like that mor-"  
Azula smacked Ty Lee across the face. The acrobat silenced, looking like she was about to cry. Mai's eyes widened and an angry look washed over her usually slate-blank face.

The room was dead silent before Azula continued.

"Mai." Azula said, noting the girl's angry look but pretending not to notice. "Would you happened to have seen…Zuko…around?"

Mai managed to keep a strait face, but her insides were churning.

"Zuko?" she said calmly, trying to resist the urge to run.

"Yes…my brother? I happened upon Iroh in the woods. I thought it was rather…strange that the old man would be by himself. And then I realized…neither of my trusted _comrades _managed to bring me back a prisoner! There had to be something wrong here."

Ty Lee gulped. Mai blinked calmly.

"I failed on my own accord, Azula. I regret underestimating the water-tribe girl."

Azula's eyes narrowed.  
"Very well." She turned to Ty Lee, who had a slap-mark on her cheek. "Ty Lee!" she said with a horrid kindness oozing from her voice.

"I see you failed as well! Care to explain what happened?"

Ty Lee looked at the ground, her face trembling. "The warrior stunned me, and the earthbender hit me in the head when I wasn't focused."  
"Why weren't you focused? SO not like you, Ty Lee" Azula snapped quickly.  
"Because…I…w-"

"I believe we all need some sleep" Mai injected bravely.

Silence.  
Azula looked ready to shoot daggers out her eyes. Mai met her gaze with a blank, uncaring look. This only increased Azula's fury.  
"Very well, _dear friends_" she said, a painted smile crossing her face. "Why don't you get some _rest_, and we'll continue this conversation tomorrow." Her fingernails traveled down the metal table, making a horrible screeching noise.  
Both Ty Lee and Mai stood up and bowed, prepared to go back to their separate quarters.  
"Oh! Ty…before you go!" Azula suddenly interrupted their silent retreat.  
"Yes?" her response sounded like the squeak of a mouse that had been stepped on.  
"I'd like to talk to you…_alone_…for a minute?"  
The pink acrobat gulped.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Katara stirred in discomfort. Aang had rolled over in the night and wrapped his arms around her again. Or at least that was the little pervert-monk's excuse. She wondered vaguely why she has a stinging pain in her back and neck.

_Must've rolled over on something sharp…_

Katara pried the boy's arms off of her, marveling at how large he'd gotten. And warm. And muscular. And…**not Aang.**

The watertribe girl's eyes shot open.  
_Holy spirits that's not Aang. _

Suddenly everything came rushing back to her. The stone cold face of the blue spirit, Mai's comments about her weakness, the pain and…nothing.

She turned around with difficulty as her rescuer had developed a crushing grip on her in sleep. Now facing him, Katara became uncomfortable of being in such close-quarters with a man. Other than Aang and her brother, or the little boys at the water tribe, or those brief few seconds with Jet, Katara had never been this close to anything male before. It gave her a strange, unfamiliar feeling. She didn't like it, but wasn't sure it felt bad, either.

Stirring made him grip tighter. Katara yelped, but this surprisingly didn't wake her rescuer. Feeling somewhat helpless, Katara tried to bite back her annoyance with this situation.

Wait a second. Where were her _clothes_!

_I am a master bender. MASTER BENDER. My friends are in danger, and here I am in the arms of some…pervert...whose name I don't know. And his arms are around me and he's all...**warm**, and…I'm HALF NAKED! HE IS GOING TO PAY FOR THIS! _

A thought struck Katara.

_He owes me. He may have rescued me but if not for him I wouldn't have gotten distracted in the first place! He OWES ME!_

Katara's gentle hands found themselves shaking as they placed themselves on the side of his cracking mask.

_Ha! Mr I'm-too-cool-to-show-my-face. Look whose in control now!_

Katara bit her lip. Her confident sarcasm never reached the surface. Her hands felt disconnected from her body.  
Slowly, very slowly, as if trying to rip a strait line in a piece of paper, the waterbender began to lift up his mask.

_Smooth chin, rather pasty, strong jaw._

A little higher.

_His lips aren't bad. He looks kissable…_

Katara internally smacked herself. _Who's the perv now?_

Just a little more…

_His nose is kinda cute! Reminds me of a puppy. Or…something._

A little higher…

She frowned, noticing slight discoloration on his cheek. Her fingers found themselves tracing the contours of his face, touching the discolored area before pushing the mask just a little higher…

Katara gasped.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"I think I found her!" Sokka shouted excitedly!  
Iroh groaned. "Last time you said that you found a porcupine-otter and it nailed you in the-"

"No, really! I think I found her!" The warrior began to run towards a particularly large tree.  
"Young warrior, I don't think that's-"

Sokka stopped dead in his tracks. He bent down and touched what he had assumed was his sister.  
"Her dress" he said dubiously. "I found her _dress_."

Iroh raised an eyebrow, before kneeling down next to Sokka. A disturbing cracking sound came from his back. Sokka twitched, looking at him blankly for a second before looking back at Katara's dress.  
"I'm old" he explained. "My bones make more sounds than a swarm of man-eating crickets!"

"It's bloody" Sokka said, looking at the red-stained rips in the newfound sunlight.  
Iroh looked at the object with confusion.  
"Why would she strip off her dress and run naked through the woods if she was injured?"

"I don't think it was her. Katara can heal herself. She wouldn't have left her water-jug behind if she was still injured. And she would have no reason to remove the dress if she was conscious to heal herself. Someone must've carried her here."

"You are most observant" Iroh observed observantly.

Sokka groaned. "Who on earth could have done it? Those girls wouldn't have cared to try and fix her wounds."  
Iroh's fingers found something glinting in the sunlight. White and blue. A chip of plaster.

"Zuko" Iroh said sadly, rubbing the fragment of Zuko's mask between his fingertips.

"WHAT! ARE YOU SAYING THAT PSYCHOTIC SCARFACED BASTARD HAS MY-"

"That psychotic scarfaced bastard is my nephew" Iroh said carefully.

"Sorry" Sokka hissed under his breath. "It's just-"  
"He's your enemy. I know. But he's not heartless. If he's with your sister, she's in good hands."

"But why?"  
"Why is she in good hands? Well, it all started when Zuko was five. I was told to watch him for an hour an-"

"No!" Sokka said in exasperation. "Why would he _save_ her?"

"They have some sort of rivalry going on. I think he wants to be one-up on her. I suppose in saving her life he'd be paying her back for saving his at the north pole."

"Actually, that was Aang. Katara and I wanted to leave him."

"Oh."

…

"Maybe he likes her." Iroh gave his infamous 'dirty old man' grin and wiggled his eyebrows at Sokka.  
"Eww! Stop putting pictures in my head old man!"

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"So, have you guys found anything yet?" Aang asked as the four travelers met back at the camp.  
"Well, we found her clothes" Sokka said, waving her dress, which was balled up in one hand.  
"You found her clothes" Toph repeated dumbly, trying to understand what part of this made any sense. "You found her clothes. Her _clothes_."

"Why would she have left her clothes behind?" Aang asked, his eye twitching.

"Actually, Sokka and I think he's with-"  
"TH-THESPIRITS!" Sokka shouted, waving his arms at Iroh to stop.

Everyone stared at him.

"She's with…the spirits! As in, the spirits are with her, you know…watching her. They work in mysterious ways!" he finished quickly.

Aang and Toph's eyes were widened at Sokka's bizarre display.

"Are you saying she's dead?" Asked Aang quietly, as though he was about to cry.

"Nonononono, she's very much alive! I'm saying she's alive! The spirits are watching over her! In fact, I'm sure any minute, they'll _return her_, right, Iroh?"  
"No? Uh-I mean, _yes_! Yes, young one, do not doubt the spirits!" He raised an eyebrow at Sokka, wondering why the warrior wanted to lie to the younger children.  
"Oh." Said Aang, scratching his bald head. He wondered idly of Sokka and Iroh had eaten some funny mushrooms while they were looking for Katara. "O-of course."

"We found BLOOD in the forest!" Toph protested.  
"It was the blood of the fish she killed."

"How the HELL should you know all this?"

"Because we…"

"Talked to her."  
"Yeah, and she said-"  
"She needed to be alone."

"You two are full of shit" Toph said blatantly. "Stinky, poorly concocted shit."

"Such a nice girl" Iroh said with a chuckle, pulling on Sokka's collar and directing him away from Aand and Toph.

"So…" said Aang, looking at Toph with a bemused expression as Sokka and Iroh proceeded to argue out of earshot. "I guess Katara's all right?"  
"Yeah, it's not _her_ I'm worried about."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Zuko's instinctive hand had grabbed Katara's. The sudden feeling of air on his face, her fingertips- the boy had woken immediately and grabbed her before she could pull his mask up and further.  
Katara stumbled back, out of his lap.

_What was she doing on top of me in the first place? Idiot girl! Her curiosity will get her KILLED one day! _

"I-I'm sorry" she squeaked.

The Blue spirit merely leered at her as the mask was pulled down over the portion of his face she's uncovered.

"Leave."

"Wh-what?"

The strange man had finally spoken. It was too brief for her to recognize his voice: cold and raspy with a slight lisp.  
_You heard me. _

Katara stood up, straitening her skimpy clothes and loose hair, her blue eyes widened. Zuko couldn't help but think she looked hot like this. It was irritating. He WAS a teenager, there was nothing wrong with having such thoughts…but NO. Not about the waterbender.

"Y-your hand" she said in alarm.

_What? _

"W-we've met before."

_No shit._

Katara stumbled backwards. She couldn't believe she'd been so _stupid_!

The Blue Spirit stood up, his blank, cracking face boring into her.

It was then the waterbender turned and ran, ran blindly back to where she hoped the camp still stood.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The rumble of her traveling compartment irritated Mai's ears as she lay on her side, worried for Ty Lee. Azula's behavior towards her had been appalling. Slapping the poor girl in the face- Mai wanted to rip her arms off and shove them down her throat.  
She knew Azula was aware of this. Their circle of friends was nothing but interconnected lies. They were tied only by their hatred of each other.

Ty Lee was the lesser of two evils. Mai had never particularly liked her, or so she thought anyway. But suddenly the girl's cheeriness and stupidity seemed like a gift from the spirit world in comparison to the demonic Azula.

Mai tried to focus her thoughts on more pleasant things. Like Zuko…Zuko who'd _betrayed her and protected the enemy. _

Zuko who'd been her friend when she was younger. Zuko who she used to meet under the bridge in the royal gardens so Azula wouldn't see them.

Zuko who'd kissed her on the cheek, and yelled at her the next day, saying Azula told him Mai was just _using_ him.  
Zuko who was dumb enough to believe her.

Mai gripped the buns at the side of her head, groaning and trying to lock out the thoughts that ran through her mind.

Ty Lee and her stupid crush on that water-tribe boy.  
Ty Lee saying she should wear brighter colors.  
Ty Lee trying to give her a makeover when they were little and making her look like a circus clown.  
Ty Lee who ran away and _joined_ the circus to get away from Azula.

Zuko and Ty Lee. The only people who had ever cared for her. Her eyes found a painting that hung on the walls of her makeshift bedroom in their monster-train like machine.

Azula and Ty Lee, grinning with their arms around a sulking Mai. They'd gotten it done at the firenation market, even though Mai protested and whined that she didn't look good in paintings.

A dagger found itself planted in Azula's smiling face.

* * *

hey! So it's a bit short, but I can't waste the fun on this chapter! It was more of a filler chapter before the good stuff starts up again, though you DID get to see a little Zutara so no complaining D:

Sneak-peak of the next chapter!

"_I was blind to you before. It wasn't the real moon I saw; it was just a reflection in the river."_

"_You're truly are amazing if you can see all that."_

"_No. I only see because there are stones under all this water." _

…

"_There's no problem if you like the boy, sweetheart! I just wanted to warn you, from the caring heart of a friend…why…you must be careful! Boys can be so fickle. One moment they're pining over you, and the next they're drooling over your best friend!" _

"_Y-yes, Azula." _


End file.
